Yes, this topic again. And if you don’t like reading about it, tough titty. Perhaps if mainstream country radio put out a modicum of effort to even try to hide the fact they’re outright excluding certain artists from radio play strictly due to their gender, we could shut the hell up about all of this. You’re tired of reading about it? Well I’m twice as tired writing about it. But the problem continues to get worse instead of better, clearly corroborated by the end-of-year numbers for country radio and the abysmal representation of women once again. The numbers don’t just compel one to speak up on the issue, they downright require it.

And no, this isn’t just about putting crappy pop performers on country radio simply because they’re women. Obviously, quality should be the biggest qualifier of what should succeed on country radio, not an artist’s sets of chromosomes. It just happens top be that restoring some gender balance would likely result in better quality, and more country-sounding music as well, with certain exceptions of course.

And don’t act like this isn’t a problem because it’s solely being driven by what people want to listen to. Pretty consistently, the singles released by women do better on the Hot Country Songs chart—which factors in sales and streams—than they do on radio. For example, the Maren Morris song “I Could Use a Love Song” sits at #25 on the year-end Hot Country Songs chart, but falls all the way to #44 on the radio chart. Miranda Lambert’s “Tin Man” comes in at #43 on the year-end Hot Country Songs chart, but doesn’t register at all in the Top 60 on radio. Miranda Lambert’s latest album The Weight of These Wings comes in at #4 on the end-of-year album sales chart, yet without a single song registering in the Top 60 on radio.

And for the record, Chris Stapleton had the #1 and #2 best selling albums of 2016 with his From A Room installments, and also doesn’t have a single song in the radio Top 60. So the idea this discrepancy on country radio is due to sales or appeal is bunk. Country radio is whatever the country music industry is telling their fat cat cronies at radio to play, and they’re not playing women.

Country radio consultant Keith Hill encapsulated the sentiment the country radio format has towards women best when he said, “If you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out,” even though the numbers don’t always bear this out. And sure, maybe folks just like listening more to men than women, but with this ridiculous discrepancy?

This is not a “snowflake” issue. When you have radio consultants saying on record that radio should stop playing women, and it bears itself out so dramatically as illustrated here, it’s a distinct bias that should be an embarrassment to the country radio industry, which should pride itself in respecting the women of country like the legacy of the genre has always done.

Want to know how bad it is for country women, here’s a breakdown:

No Solo Women Artists in the Top 10 Most-Played Songs on Country Radio in 2017

And except for Lady Antebellum, which includes one female member (out of three), and a guest appearance by Lauren Alaina on Kane Brown’s “What Its,” there’s no women representation whatsoever.

No Solo Women in the Top 15 Most-Played Songs on Country Radio in 2017

That’s Carly Pearce, and her song “Every Little Thing” that comes in at #16. And the only reason it was able to crack the Top 20 is because it benefited from iHeartMedia’s “On The Verge” program which awards additional spins to certain songs across their fastly-crumbling radio empire.

Only 3 Solo Women in the Country Radio Top 30

With Kelsea Ballerini’s “Yeah Boy” coming in at #22, and Lauren Alaina’s “Road Less Traveled” at #25, that gives women a meager and embarrassing 10% representation when looking at the Top 30. But wait until we zoom out a little farther . . .

Only 3 Solo Women in the Country Radio Top 40

That means only 7.5% of the artists played in the Top 40 were women, with the Top 40 being the radio industry standard for representing the playlists of most stations, with a side note of Little Big Town’s “Better Man” coming in at #34. Little Big Town’s lineup includes two men, and two women.

Only 1 Nominee for the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in the Country Radio Top 40

That’s right, so even the most popular and successful women of the genre aren’t getting radio play. Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, and even Maren Morris were all locked out of the year-end Top 40 in 2017. Only Kelsea Ballerini makes an appearance, and she was still locked out of the Top 20.

Only 4 Solo Women in the Country Radio Top 50

Even as you continue to zoom out your perspective on country radio, the gender bias doesn’t improve as you start to consider the margins and also-rans. It arguably gets even worse. Even adding Maren Morris and “I Could Use a Love Song” at #44, it still only improves the percentage of women to 8%.

Only 5 Women in the Country Radio Top 60

You have to count past 51 songs and artists until you come to one who has won a CMA for Female Vocalist of the Year, and that’s Carrie Underwood with “Dirty Laundry.” So even zooming out as far as Billboard makes the year-end country radio charts available, the representation of women is still only 8.3%, and the current CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Miranda Lambert, is still nowhere to be found.

Is this truly an unprecedented trend, or has it been this bad for female country artists before? I’m not trying to refute the point of the article, it’s a legitimate question I’m posing to see if this type of thing has been seen before.

I know less than 5 of those songs and I enjoy less than that. Women being played is an issue but so is country being played on country radio. The #1 song is more proof than ever that country radio is anything but.

Tough titty, indeed! What a dire read. 2017 has been rubbish in so many ways: the re-awakening of white supremacy, Weinstein and company and now this. Nothing no like a dose of misogyny to end the year. Thanks for highlighting this, Trig. Here’s to a better 2018.

Absolutely shameful. I wonder when and how things will change. Thank you for your continued coverage of this important issue. Even though people are talking about it, nothing is actually changing. As you say, it seems to be getting worse. As I’ve commented before, there were more women being played in years past. We had Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Reba, Shania Twain, Patty Loveless, Lorrie Morgan, and I could go on. They were played on mainstream country radio. Of course, women have always struggled to be heard in the music business. That is nothing new, but we cannot ignore the terrible state of things right now, and the statistics prove it.

It is bad but there have been worse years. I did a data project and 2003 & 2013 for example had zero #1 singles by a solo female artists. Actually per decade, the 70s had the most weeks with a female solo artist being at #1. (It is kind of difficult to trend this with all the changing charts Billboard has thrown at us).

13 female solo artists + 6 female artists as part of a duo, trio or group in the Top 40. (A couple of acts with 2 or 3 entries.) Not bad.
Not every song in the aussie charts is a winner or good…but the US “Country” Top 40 are in a sad state.

good one, Honky. I think the point he is making here is quite clear and there is nothing sexist about it. Sunny Sweeney, for example, should be cathing air-time on every country station in the world right now. As should Nikki Lane, Angeleena Presley, and COUNTLESS others. This “turn-the-other-way and just play the boys” thing is real. And it is keeping a lot of people from hearing a lot of incredible artists. it really is a total slap in the face to a lot of talented women. just my two cents.

don’t i just know it. Very good points. It’s a very unfortunate situation across the board. Times like these, I am very thankful for my Spotify Premium subscription and my ever growing record collection. Radio has been total s#!t for many years, now.

I love listening to women sing, because it allows me to fall in love with them for 3-5 minutes. Unfortunately I just can’t get that same emotional connection with a man, even if I can identify with their perspective easier.

It’s really sad and disappointing when these talented women are constantly overlooked.
Meanwhile the press and industry makes sure we know what Thomas Rhett’s wife and kids are up to at all times. Pathetic.

Trig, I get this is an issue and good on you for bringing it up, but the question is what do we do about it?
As you point out, fans are doing what they should with sales being much more diverse, and radio is crumbling.
The capitalist system has spoken, give it time and radio will be replaced.
Incidentally, with the Australian country charts, it should be noted that country radio hardly exists. I live in a rural area and i never hear it. There are the occasional spots on community radio.

With this issue, like all gender issues, we have to be careful we don’t cause the opposite effect. Saying that a female artist should be popular but isnt popular excludes the people who buy only hidden unpopular artists and also people who want to listen to whatever is being played.
Music is a business, not a moral right.

I’ll be honest as a male I enjoy my country sung by men with the very few exceptions, Womack, Krause, Goens and of course the legends. I don’t really listen to country radio anymore so I’m not sure I am missing out on any female singers. Maybe more women should be played but as someone who has no idea how radio works is this a case of supply and demand?

The idea that radio plays the artists the public wants to hear is a myth. When you have three of the Top 4 selling albums in country music in a given year (Stapleton, Stapleton, and Lambert)—all three of which have been certified Gold, and two of which have been certified platinum—and yet no one song from either of those three albums can’t even inch into the Top 60 of country radio, you know demand has nothing to do with it. Radio doesn’t play what people want to hear. Radio decides what people want to hear. The idea that the public is demanding no female artists is the lie they hide behind. Radio is simply a way to promote mainstream artists on tour.

I often wonder if sponsors who advertise on radio using every stupid ploy possible to sell shit , clue into the fact that the lowest common denominator ( read ..folks who don’t think for themselves ) is an easier sell . And that lowest common denominator doesn’t seem to think for itself when it comes to music either. If ‘country’ radio plays crap their target demographic will listen to endlessly BECAUSE they don’t really care about whether its good or not but whether its dirt simple and a mindless choice of pastime,sponsors want THAT demographic. That lowest common easy-to-market-to denominator ….NOT music fans ,whatsoever . Just an easy-to-target demographic who are either too buys or too lazy or simple too gullible to consider the options to what radio and/or sponsors are trying to feed them .
I suppose the silver lining in this is that there ARE people who DO care about what they are being fed and they support REAL music in phenomenal ( in these times ) numbers by purchasing Stapleton’s stuff , Sturgill’s stuff , Lambert’s stuff WITHOUT significant radio exposure .

BTW ….in case you aren’t convinced that human’s can be so dimwitted , I just heard that someone recently called 911 …yes ..911…because the nail polish they got didn’t match the colour on the container . THIS must surely be the demographic sponsors are targeting by supporting shit music on ‘ country ‘ radio .

Country radio these days is not meant for the masses as we like to say, it is niche programming meant as nothing more to push corporate beer and domestic full size trucks to the target demographic of consumers, and to promote LiveNation-sponsored tours. It’s basically one big infomercial.

Stapleton also has no radio strategy. He still hasn’t actually released a single off of his second album this year. That said, I hope they stick with Broken Halos. It’s still climbing at radio & actually has decent testing.

I know first hand that “music row fat cats” only care about making money and would sell off their child to get rich. The market and money dictate what they choose to promote. Do you think those assholes listen to Sam Hunt or Florida Georgia Line in their free time? No, they could care less about how good the music is or what gender is singing it. They care about making money. If you have ever spent much time backstage or at merch tables at country concerts you would see how sex driven a big majority of female country fans are. They are more interested in how the male stars look than the music. Female fans drive the market and they want hunks on their concert t-shirts. It’s sad to watch. I’m sure this will be unpopular on here but there’s no conspiracy. Music Row doesn’t say “no” to making money. That’s just crazy. Also, there are women in the industry that use complaining about this conspiracy to keep their names in the headlines by making this their cause. Did you ever hear Dolly Parton whine about unfair treatment? No, and she came up in a time when women were really treated poorly. Dolly just did it better than all the men and became one of the most successful artists, songwriters, actors, and business people in America. That’s how you win.

Believe it or not, I mostly agree. I think there is a major issue with women being repressed in the mainstream and specifically due to their gender. But at some point, as an artist you have to stop making excuses about how the system is rigged and that’s the reason for your lack of success, and start doing the best you can and beat the system at its own game. This is what Loretta did. This is what Dolly Parton did. This is what Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells did. You want to speak up about the issue? Excellent. But then also go out there and do something so badass, it can’t be held down. Unfortunately a lot of mainstream women (and their labels) think they need to compromise with pop to get radio’s attention, when even these efforts are failing at this point.

I disagree. There’s a reason sports merchandise was designed solely for men despite women making up over 40% of viewers. When everyone at the top is male, they stick with what they know and find it very difficult to try new methods. (Also why when they finally did offer women’s sports shirts they were pink, I mean how much more degrading can you be).

With the exception of a couple of guilty pleasures, I really don’t want to hear a song performed by a woman. I also don’t want to endure the spectacle of a woman attempting to make me laugh, announcing a sporting event, or giving me investment advice. If you want to get rich, short sell the stock of any company that names a female CEO.

Trigger, I totally agree with you on the general point, but you’ve got to stop using the hot country songs chart as a barometer of well anything. And that goes double for the year end charts (any year end chart actually), because they’re so reliant on timing, and rise spped.

(also the streaming balance is off, but that’s a slightly different issue)

As someone who’s a big fan of chart history it really saddens me what has become of the Hot Country Songs chart. Between the pop airplay counting and the streaming issues that you mentioned it is really a meaningless indicator at this point. But yet it is THE gold standard for country charts because of the Billboard name and the long running history so now Hunt and FGL and Bebe whatshername are racking up history making achievements to rival Merle, Dolly and Hank. Depressing.

The focus here was not the Hot Country Songs chart, it was Country Airplay. I completely agree with you about Hot Country Songs and have raged against it on many, many occasions. But in this instance I though it gave at least some insight into the discrepancy between consumer appetite, and what the radio is serving.

HCS seems to be the metric you use when comeplaining about airplay. But HCS can be extremely variable from week to week & is influenced heavily by high profile performances, where radio is a longer term trend game. I think generally you’d be better off looking at the avg sales position to make your same point.

As it pertains to the yr long list, the problem is, to use tin man again, this is a song that is benefiting on hcs from sales from dec of last yr to dec of this year + a huge boost from acm’s. For radio it’s only been a single from April – early dec. Generally speaking it’s ranking on HCS on a week to week basis is around its airplay (both mid-20’s). Not saying that people don’t like & don’t want to buy the song, but it hasn’t been a commercial smash single (also true of Chris, people buy the album but don’t seem to latch on to a particular single as much), & the year end discrepancy makes sense.

This of course all ignores the point that radio doesn’t really care about sales. Now maybe they should, but that’s a different debate.

Also, if half the people love a song, and half hate it, it will sell well, and radio isn’t going to convert it to power, because it’ll cause an audience drop. Whereas, if 80% of people like a song, it won’t sell well, but radio will play the heck out of it.

Yep, it’s pretty much a guarantee that songs by women have very polarizing like/dislike numbers when you look at the call outs. Going back to Shania Twain through Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert they all would have big dislike numbers. I think it’s why their singles would always tumble rapidly even if they reached the top.

Interestingly, Carrie & to a lesser extent Kelsea get some ok to good call out scores. Also lauren Alaina’s road less travelled and Carly’s elt got avg- good call out scores. What is then truly infuriating is that radio refuses to give the next single from these artists a chance, & just keeps playing the old one.

I wonder if part of this goes to that On The Verge thing and a feeling from programmers that they are only playing this because of that and when that single runs it’s course then their work is done. We’ve seen that with some of the other acts that have benefitted from that also. That program is such short term thinking.

I also think that the newer, younger generation of programmers that have almost all come from a pop radio background are much more comfortable with the one hit wonder concept and don’t feel any need to build relationships between listeners and performers. Again, short term thinking.

of course, none of this specifically explains the lack of women but it is all part of the equation.

Makes you think that if radio can’t be trusted to play what most people would enjoy , why worry about their existence at all . Perhaps its a case of stepping up the battle on all other fronts by artists in order to ensure exposure ….ie more live shows ….more festival spots ….better marketing overall …..dealing only with labels that guarantee exposure and promotion from more sources than radio …etc

My son’s band was recently signed for several years with a local label that , outside of funding the project and videos , did almost NOTHING to secure any kind of radio or streaming exposure and even less to book , through pro agencies , live appearances or Tv spots. Makes you shake your head …..an investment of well over 200,000 bucks in the act and nothing seriously done to get them exposure . It convinced me that if you want something done DO IT YOURSELF ..or as much of it as you can …your chances of success will be at least as good as the A-listers capitol “A” artists who get less than warranted exposure

I think people have a mis-perception of what OTV does. It doesn’t take a song to #1, or even #10. The problem for most new acts is getting their song spun at all on the radio, never mind getting the song enough exposure for it to register in testing. OTV basically takes a song into the top 20, and gets the song enough exposure for testing.

Now the songs are selected by programmers, so it tends to be songs that radio programmers want to add into rotation, and think are going to test well, which is why (so far) they have all gone on to make top 10. So they do want to play the song.

But I think you’re right about them not maybe caring as much about the artist. Also I think they prefer to play a safe song they already know listeners like, then a new one, and given women get played so rarely, they don’t want to play 2 Lauren Alaina songs.

(This is also why I sort of wish Trigger would stop using Miranda as his example, her radio experience isn’t what it looks like for most women at country radio. Miranda’s singles do get added to rotation, and put into rotation high enough for testing, and even when they don’t test well radio is willing to leave them in low to medium rotation for months. Unless your name is Carrie, Miranda, Kelsea, or Maren, your problem is just getting your song high enough for testing.)

(last post) This is unfortunately a vicious cycle. You don’t hear many women voices on the radio, so when you hear one it’s a bit jarring. This causes negative feedback numbers, and causes fewer women to be played, and repeat. And the streaming charts are arguably worse, with zero single solo female songs in the top 25, and no women in the top 10 overall streamers.

It’s not just country either, the rock charts for instance are arguably even worse. It’s just a frustrating problem.

With so many options available I’m really surprised people still listen to the radio. I personally stopped listening to radio decades ago as I did not like to be told what to listen to. And really who cares about the charts but the artists themselves. Don’t really care what’s #1 or # 2. I care about good music and radio generally does not provide that.

The topic is (and correct me if I’m wrong) Women only make up 7.5% of what’s PLAYED on corporate Country radio. First off I find it funny that most of us on here don’t or rarely listen to those stations anyway myself included save for a few minutes here and there when I’m in the car and don’t want to “start an album” but we all certainly have opinions on it and more importantly the ramifications of it and it’s effects on the success of the careers of those ladies that are deemed “worthy” on here.

First off, yep the demographics of those stations listeners are women age 16-40 who want to hear and SEE hot hunky guys singing about………you guessed it women, love and yep even “shakin it girl”. You know, the ones that packed the sold out Brett Young show last week. The ones that didn’t even care that a woman “what’s her name? Carly something?” was onstage opening. “Oh she sings that song on the radio”. These are the same ones who wouldn’t support or care about a Margo Price or Sunny Sweeney and do you know why? Because they’re not played on the radio. The sheeple that listen to the radio will like and go see anything that’s shoved down their throats over and over and OVER. It’s been that way since radio was invented. Big 95.5 Country Christmas 2017 – 5 dudes NO WOMEN sold out. At least last year the threw in Maren Morris and Cam. It’s wrong on so many levels. I personally love many women’s music in all genre’s but for some reason even I (like many guys above said) still play mostly men’s albums when it’s time to put one on. It’s easier for US to sing along with one of our own.

Oh and 1 more thing kind of off topic but still matters here. Whitey Morgan is playing the dinky bar up the street from my house tonight (which I found out yesterday by accident) You know where I didn’t hear of him? The radio. You guys turned me on to him and I love it. If he was played on the radio he wouldn’t be playing a dinky bar because more people like me would go. Many people don’t know these people exist.

I don’t know where else to post this because this site isn’t set up that way but I need to apologize to Whitey and the venue. It wasn’t a “dinky bar” it was the Brauerhouse Live venue next door connected to the dinky bar (Capacity 700). Absolutely incredible show!!! Whitey and his band tore it up. I was blown away! As was everyone else! Thank all of you on here for letting me know about him. THIS is what’s wrong with the system. There was 600 people there and as of yesterday I didn’t even know this show existed and was 10 miles from my house because it was at a venue that’s not normally Country. No radio promo or anything else. I actually found it by accident searching for anything that was going on around my area tonight yesterday. I have no idea how the 600 people even knew about this how?

There are certainly women who like to hear men sing about women. But there are plenty of women who like to hear women sing about men, & men & women sing about life in general. The argument that women don’t want to hear women is definitely false. Now if you want to say men don’t want to hear women, that’s possible. I’ve been to numerous female country artist concerts and the fans are mostly female. Kenny Chesney, his audience was much more even male/female though perhaps skewed male.

For whatever reason a number of men seem to have a hang up about listening to female artists. Like it doesn’t make them masculine if they do or something.

All men, but the sings are all about women. Commercial music is about selling commercials, just as bar music is about selling beer. How to sell commercials to women? Feed their vanity, frustration, and ensuing fantasies.

That’s what all this “male” music does. When was the last time you heard men singing about work, history, or politics? Never. This is music made by men, but it is entirely geared toward women.

Did you really think a commercial venue would somehow allow art to trump commerce? Only as a sop. It’s futile to expect a new paradigm from a commercial environment. Men have known this for a very long time.

IMO women in general have better voices than men, so this problem seems stupidly ridiculous to me, though I am a man who is attracted to women, and that may play into my personal bias.

But I also know a LOT more men who like country music than women, so it also doesn’t make sense to me that radio would basically turn their backs on their largest demographic (men who actually like real country music regardless of the singer’s gender), unless radio is just a smaller piece of a larger sales and marketing monopoly, which of course it is.

At this point the playlists of radio stations are finely tuned algorithms that generate the highest revenue. If recordings of rooster orgasms made the most money rest assured we’d be hearing nothing but throaty cock-a-doodle-do’s over the airwaves.

The key is why playing women’s songs generates less money. These days it appears it takes a hot guy singing about trucks to generate the cash. The Shania formula seems to be the rare exception. Or Taylor. And maybe they’re outdated at that.

This coming from a guy whose walk-up song would be ‘Keep Your Distance’ by Patty Loveless.